The present invention relates to electric connectors, and more particularly to such an electric connector which comprises a conductor rack equipped with indicator lights at the top side.
Regular RJ45 connectors (commonly used as network connectors, and shaped like RJ11 telephone connector) and RJ11 telephone connectors are equipped with eight conductors and six conductors respectively. Because the size of connectors is very small, therefore it is difficult to made the plastic shell and the conductors in integrity, so that the machines used for manufacturing these connectors are very expensive. In order to minimize the manufacturing cost of these connectors, the conductor rack and the plastic shell are separately made, and then assembled together. For examples, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,703,991 and 5,639,267 disclose such structure. However, the arrangement of both conductor racks require long conductors. Therefore, it is necessary to shorten the length of conductors to reduce the cost. Furthermore, the conductor rack according to these connectors is not applicable for holding indicator means. Therefore, the patented techniques cannot be employed to RJ45 or RJ11 connectors with indicator means.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 5,601,451 discloses a combination of RJ45 connector and BNC connector. The RJ45 connector has an indicator light at the bottom side. However, because the indicator light is provided at the bottom side of the RJ45 connector, it cannot be conveniently viewed by the user. Therefore, it is needed to have a conductor rack for electric connector with indicator light(s) at the top side.